


thrusting back into my skin i feel anew

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [46]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Healing, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Onslaught Spoilers, Post-Onslaught, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 03:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: time can be a thief if you let it. nirea and doc try to find their footing with six years of time, distance, and damage between them. spoilers for onslaught.





	thrusting back into my skin i feel anew

**Author's Note:**

> i've been waiting for an excuse to write this since the last update and now i have one. written in a fever dream after finishing the onslaught and totally unproofread and unedited. brace yourself for stream-of-consciousness bullshit and punctuation abuse.

She’s so still.

Doc isn’t sure why it keeps him up like it does, all the little movements she isn’t making. By all accounts he should be sleeping better without Rea doing gymnastics in their bed.

He isn’t.

He’s lying awake, blinking tired eyes at the exposed rock she calls a ceiling in this dank little cave of hers. He’s clenching his fists and grinding his teeth and opening his mouth to ask what the deal is and then closing it again because that’s a stupid fucking question, isn’t it? He knows what the deal is. The deal is the Emperor coming back from the grave  _ again _ and more Sith magic no one knows anything about and that new softness in Scourge’s voice and that new steel in Kira’s eyes. The deal is Corellia burning again and Malgus and the Empire and slavers and Jedi Padawans and Jedi Councils and probably three dozen other things she hasn’t had time to catch him up on.

He knows what the deal is. He just doesn’t know what to say about it. He doesn’t know how to get back to the way things used to be, to their easy understandings and wordless conversations. He doesn’t even know if she wants to be touched right now.

But Rea--

Stars shine on her, Rea’s never needed to know how a thing should be done before she just did it.

“Do you think I made the right call?” She asks, like they haven’t been laying in tense silence for the last hour.

_ You’re the Jedi. How should I know? _ The words jump to his tongue, an old, familiar joke, but it doesn’t feel funny anymore. Nothing much feels funny about this day.

“I’m not sure it matters what I think, Beautiful.”

It’s not like he’s insecure. If he isn’t the  _best_ doctor in the galaxy--and considering the life expectancy of a half-decent doctor these days, he’s pretty sure he is--Doctor Archiban Kimble is definitely top three. He’s damn good at what he does, the shooting and the scheming just as much as the healing, and he knows it. He works hard to make sure everyone else knows it too.

He isn’t insecure. But he isn’t stupid, either. He can’t just  _ not notice _ the big fucking gap between the galaxy’s most valuable doctor and the galaxy’s most valuable person, period. He can’t not notice that, as much as he carries life and death in his hands, entire empires rise and fall on Rea’s shoulders.

The gap was always there before, but it’s so much bigger now. He doesn’t know how to get across.

“It matters,” Rea says, and finally moves. She rolls onto her side, her cheek pillowed on folded hands as she stares at him with this intensity he doesn’t even recognize. “It matters to me.”

And because he’s a helpless idiot who can’t do anything but follow her, even after all this time, he rolls onto his side too. “That’s kind of a big deal these days.”

“It was always a big deal,” she says, but she can’t quite manage a smile. “I’ve been waiting all day to ask, you know.”

Waiting is probably a strong word, but he likes to hear it anyway. He likes to hear that it matters to her what he thinks, even if her opinion is the one that counts. He likes to hear that it’s something she considers, when she’s out there shaping the galaxy. That  _ he’s _ still something she considers.

(She promised she still loved him. Promised she never stopped, that there was no one else and nothing else and she looked for him for a year and he believes her it’s just that--it’s just that everything’s so  _ different _ now.)

“I don’t know any better than you what the right call is, Gorgeous.”

She moves her hand into the space between them, fingers curling like she wants to reach for him, but she doesn’t. He wants to reach out too, to touch her and tell her it’s okay. He wants to know what’s holding her back.

He’s too afraid of the answer to ask.

“What would you have done, then? In my shoes.”

“Got some smaller shoes?”

She smiles finally, a small thing but real, and the tight coil of something in his gut starts to relax. “Jackass. I’m having an existential crisis here, okay? I need your advice.”

“No you don’t,” Doc says, finding himself smiling right back. “You don’t need me for shit, Gorgeous. I always said so, and the last six years prove it, don’t they? You can get by just fine without me.” He takes the hand that had reached for him in his, feels the flutter of her pulse under his thumb and draws it to his lips.

He meant to give her space this time, to let her come to him on her own, but he’s no better at staying away now than he was the last time. Doc can’t help pushing, even if he can’t tell which direction he’s pushing her in.

He kisses her wrist, her palm. He kisses the pads of her fingers, never looking away from her eyes, so wide and so blue in the dark of their room. “You’ve never needed me,” he says, smiling. “But I like that you  _ want _ me.”

Her hand curls around his and she’s moving again, wiggling her way across the gap between them, pressing closer and closer until their bodies are flush together and her toes are caressing the backs of his knees.

“Of course I want you, Dumbass. I never  stopped  wanting you.” She takes a deep breath and her eyes fall shut as she brings their joined hands to her lips, dragging kisses across his knuckles. “I never stopped,” she whispers, her voice tight. “I’m sorry if it doesn’t seem like it. If I forgot how to show you--”

Doc feels the heat of tears against his hand. “Hey,” he says. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Gorgeous, you didn’t--”

But he has stop himself. Because she  _ did _ . Because she’s Rea and he knows her, knows her better than anyone in the galaxy knows her, knows her better even than her brother, better than her new pet spy. He knows her instinct when she’s hurting is to close up and pile the armor high. He knows how much it scares her to lean on another person, to  want something that could easily be ripped away.

He knows these last six years have torn all those old wounds open and left her raw and aching.

“I’m trying,” she whispers, more solemn than sad. “I hate that I have to. It used to be so easy. I  wanted this to be so easy, just like old times, but…”

“I get it,” Doc says, because he does. Because she’s not the only one fighting battles that were supposed to be already won.

Rea squeezes his hand, drawing it against her chest as she opens her eyes to look at him again. There’s tears there, but strength too. Determination. “Things have changed so much. I keep being terrified you’re gonna look up and realize none of this is what you signed up for, that  I’m not what you signed up for anymore. And I just--I’m so scared of losing you again that I can’t even enjoy being with you while you’re here.”

Stars. He isn’t surprised, but hearing her say it is still-- _ Stars _ .

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. “I’ll be right here with you for as long as you still want me.”

He sees the little furrow in her brow, the little twitch that tells him she heard exactly what he said and exactly what he meant and she’s not about to forget it.

“Besides, I couldn’t leave if I wanted to, Gorgeous. I’m an Alliance citizen now.” He nudges her with his knee, grinning. “Not saying I’m not flattered, but you really didn’t need to blow the Republic off just to keep me on Odessen.”

Rea doesn’t smile. “So you think I made the wrong call? You think I should’ve taken the offer?”

Doc sighs, his own smile fading quickly. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d want to balance on a razor’s edge in the minefield between the Republic and the Empire if I could help it, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s you Rea.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

It hurts a little that she has to ask, but he can’t say he blames her. “I know how to make you feel better, Gorgeous, and it doesn’t usually involve words.” This time, she does smile. “I  _ mean _ it. Don’t know what the Alliance is gonna do when I finally convince you to retire, but as long as they’ve got you they’ll be fine. There’s no one in the galaxy who can stop you when you’ve got your mind set.”

“It’s a big gamble,” she says. “I know it is. The whole thing is riding on me and Force fucking knows I need more of that like a hole in the head. But--” She swallows, letting her eyes drop to their hinds, still wound together and pressed against her chest. “I promised these people I’d take care of them. They trusted me with their lives and I just wasn’t sure I could keep my word if we got tangled up in Republic bureaucracy again. You know what it’s like, how easy it is to slip things through the cracks.”

He nods. He does know. Probably better than anyone except Rea herself. “But what about you, Gorgeous? You’re not making your job any easier here.”

“When have I ever done anything the easy way?”

“You do prefer things hard.”

Doc laughs shamelessly at his own joke and it’s enough to make Rea laugh with him. She presses her lips to his and laughs right into his mouth, sloppy and easy and so very  _ her _ it makes his heart stutter. Then she’s sliding her toes along the back of his leg, just as limber and just as eager as she used to be and suddenly his joke is not a joke at all because this-- _ this _ is just as easy as it always was. Because their bodies always know just what to say and how to say it.

“Let’s have sex,” she mumbles, already kissing her way down his throat, her hand already teasing him through his shorts, and he can only hope the sound he makes in answer sounds adequately like a  yes .

Their voices echo against the exposed rock of what passes for a ceiling in the dank little cave Rea calls a bedroom, and if it isn’t quite like old times… Well at least they aren’t lying still.


End file.
